Can you put a price on misery? When it comes to problem gambling the answer, apparently, is yes.

A team of economists has calculated that if the UK’s hundreds of thousands of problem gamblers were to be cured of their addictions, the boost to the nation’s collective happiness would be equivalent to a £30bn windfall.

The work, based on an analysis of 10,000 adult gamblers presented at last week’s Royal Economic Society’s annual conference, suggests that around 0.7% of adults, about a third of a million people, are now classified as problem gamblers.